Shannon F. this is the 24th, my wife,Martha,andI will be volunteering at a
Sustainable living Festival from fri. the 26th, till noon sunday the 28th I
would like to talk with your
volunteer, but it sounds like our times will not work out. You're in the mountain time zone right?
Hopefully, you have had the time to read through 'Rocket Mass Heaters' a couple of times. It is too late at this time to expect you to demolish the
start of the horizontal stove pipe, to 'burn off' the galvanizing, though if we have to expose those parts I would recommend that you plan on running
them through a hot fire to get them to out gas, which you will know has happened when the pipe turns from shinny to flat! I am not worried about
the part that will be buried in the cob, but I do
strongly recommend that you do dismount the barrel and do a more efficient burn to clean-off
the paint and any remaining gunk in the barrel using the method already talked about!
It is very important that you and ANYONE else who wants to work on your
Rocket Stove, understands the concept of Cross Section Area and is ded-
icated to keeping it whole-y (pun intended). If you can't write it down in your own words so that when someone else reads it,they say 'yes that makes
sense to me ', try writing it down the way it was written ! Then try again !
Starting with a small stone chisel you should be able to create a 6.5'' by 6.5'' square hole about 3'' deeper than than the bottom of your burn tunnel .
The Idea will be to help free the
Dragon trapped in your imperfect
Rocket Stove ! We will end up relining this shape into a basic near square shape
6x6, do not worry about the bottom shape just yet.Due to the fact that the stovepipe elbow is made in 4 pieces it is likely that you can catch the edge
of the side closest to to barrel and collapse the elbow, section by section,cleaning it out of the Feed Tube and Burn Tunnel, the 4th and last section of
the elbow can be left in place if the third section pops lose w/out damaging the 4th section. Keep your fingers crossed.
After a simple reline with just clay slip and sand, you can try once again to start a burn in your Rocket Stove starting with a
newspaper sheet amount
of shredded paper, to warm up the pipe and create a draw. Just about the way you start any
wood stove, But of course, you are stacking your wood
vertically in the Feed Tube, so that the wood as it burns down feeds itself into the fire, with a clean burning fire you soon develop a bed of hot coals
that as they help consume the rest of the wood turns to
ash in the lower ash pit, it is important that the transition from the Feed Tube to the Burn
Tunnel be smooth. The floor of the Burn Tunnel back into the bottom of the Feed Tube being level, or slightly downhill to the Feed Tube leaving the
ash pit lower still .
While the barrel is off, being re-burned, you can measure the height of the Heat Riser to figure out the Gap between the Heat Riser and the underside
of the barrel. Look up the right gap in the book ! Hopefully you have had a rocket-y
enough burn so that you find a little ash in the bottom of your
Rocket Stove base, this would be a good sign, we also want to see a very clean transition from the bottom of the barrel into the horizontal run and to
the exhaust stovepipe! There is a way to offset the barrel so that less heat is radiated off of the barrel closest to the door and near wall and more out
into the room, this slight change will increase the 'Cross sectional Area' exactly on the side where you transition into the horizontal connection with the
exhaust pipe !
I know you have more than enough information to make a few changes to your Rocket Stove, remember to post your work and the results of some of
these changes. Peace, for the good of the craft, be safe, keep warm, PYROmagicly - Big Al
)
